Protests call for justice after police shootings

Associated Press

FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn.

A woman who watched as a police officer fatally shot her boyfriend during a traffic stop streamed the gruesome aftermath of the slaying live on Facebook, telling a worldwide audience that her companion had been shot “for no apparent reason” while reaching for his wallet.

Within hours, the Minnesota governor was pressing for the Justice Department to open its second investigation of the week into the death of a black man at the hands of police.

“Nobody should be shot and killed in Minnesota for a taillight being out of function,” Democrat Mark Dayton said. “Would this have happened if those passengers would have been white? I don’t think it would have.”

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner said Philando Castile, 32, of St. Paul died of multiple gunshot wounds but did not give details about his injuries.

It was the second fatal police shooting in as many days. A black 37-year-old man was killed Tuesday by officers in Baton Rouge, La. Alton Sterling’s death was caught on video.

The latest death happened late Wednesday in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights, a mostly white community of 5,000 people that is also home to Minnesota’s annual state fair and part of the massive University of Minnesota campus.

In the video, Diamond Reynolds describes being pulled over for a “busted taillight” and says her boyfriend had told the officer he was carrying a gun for which he was licensed.

As word of the shooting spread, Castile’s relatives joined scores of people who gathered at the scene and outside the hospital where he died. He was a well-liked 32-year-old cafeteria supervisor at a Montessori school.

Reynolds said Thursday that he was killed even though he complied with the officer’s instructions. She told reporters that Castile did “nothing but what the police officer asked of us, which was to put your hands in the air and get your license and registration.”

The Department of Justice announced that it would monitor the investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The governor said he and other state officials would seek more direct involvement.

Speaking to CNN, Castile’s mother said that she suspected she would never learn the whole truth about her son’s death.

“I think he was just black in the wrong place,” Valerie Castile said Thursday, adding that she had stressed to her children that they must do what authorities tell them to do to survive.

“I always told them, whatever you do when you get stopped by police, comply, comply, comply.”

Speaking at a vigil Thursday evening outside the school where Philando Castile worked, Valerie Castile called her son “an angel.” She said she never thought she would lose him.

“This has to cease. This has to stop, right now,” she told the crowd.

Hundreds of demonstrators braved the rain and gathered to protest the shooting outside the Governor’s Mansion in St. Paul, where a crowd also had convened the night before. The group swelled to more than 1,000 for a time as people marched from the school vigil. Dayton waded through the crowd as protesters chanted: “What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now.”

The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension named the two officers involved as Jeronimo Yanez and Joseph Kauser. Both had been with the St. Anthony Police Department for four years and were put on standard administrative leave.